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We told you last week about the impromptu speech Spike Lee gave during an event for Black History Month at the Pratt Institute recently. When a man tried to ask Lee if he ever thought about the positive aspects of gentrification, Lee shut him all the way down with some deep points.

Then comes the motherf**kin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome. You can’t discover this! We been here. You just can’t come and bogart. There were brothers playing motherf**kin’ African drums in Mount Morris Park for 40 years and now they can’t do it anymore because the new inhabitants said the drums are loud. My father’s a great jazz musician. He bought a house in nineteen-motherf**kin’-sixty-eight, and the motherf**kin’ people moved in last year and called the cops on my father. He’s not — he doesn’t even play electric bass! It’s acoustic! We bought the motherf**kin’ house in nineteen-sixty-motherf**kin’-eight and now you call the cops? In 2013? Get the f**k outta here!

You can check out the full speech here. But one person who doesn’t really agree with Lee is actor Anthony Mackie. Mackie, who once starred in Lee’s film, She Hate Me, said in an interview with TheGrio that Lee’s opinions on gentrification are interesting considering the fact that the director left Brooklyn a long time ago. He feels that if Lee really wanted to help, he would have invested in businesses in Brooklyn that create more opportunities for the borough’s residents.

Chris Witherspoon: Spike Lee is in the media and in the press talking about gentrification in Brooklyn. You own a bar in Brooklyn, right?

Anthony Mackie: Spike Lee don’t live in Brooklyn.

Witherspoon: Okay, he’s from Brooklyn though. His heart is Brooklyn.

Mackie: So why did he leave Brooklyn?

Weatherspoon: I don’t know. These things I have to ask Spike when I see him again. What’s your take on his issues with gentrification? Do you think it’s a good thing for places like Brooklyn and New York City?

Mackie: I don’t know. I live in Brooklyn. My address is in Brooklyn. I have two restaurants in Brooklyn, and I don’t have a problem with the gentrification. It’s a very good thing. I wouldn’t call it gentrification. The people that want to live in Brooklyn, move to Brooklyn. I mean, New York is going through this huge transition where the people who used to live in Manhattan now live in Brooklyn. The people who used to live in Brooklyn, now live in Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. The people who used to live in Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island are just being displaced. So I wouldn’t call it gentrification. Because it’s the same income level in Brooklyn, it’s just a different shade of people. Some people might say when Spike moved to Manhattan, that was a type of reverse gentrification. Possibly. As your tax brackets changes, I guess your zip code changes.

I think Mackie makes some points that people hadn’t really thought about. I’m sure using a hefty income to buy homes and apartments in Brooklyn and trying to keep the rent low for residents would have helped big time, as opposed to picking up and moving to the wealthy side of town. But in Lee’s defense, his production studio, 40 Acres and A Mule, is in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

I would also say that the income has changed with the people who have come in. People are being forced out of their homes specifically to make way for those who can afford to pay much higher rent, so I wouldn’t say that gentrification is necessarily a “very good thing.” But Mackie’s points also beg the question, one that I’ve discussed with people on and off over the years, of whether or not it’s an issue when famous people decide to  leave behind places they grew up in or try to rep the most once they can afford to (a la, J Lo and her Jenny From the Block shtick). What do you think?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

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